Still ill
by SlytherinElektra
Summary: Loki is an Avenger. He's also a bit lonely, unliked in that great mansion. To top it all, he's feeling sick. And then sicker. Not much angst, just sick Loki and kinda helpful Avengers. (Ok, not true anymore. Chapter 2 is a whole lot of undiluted angst) Sick!Loki
1. Chapter 1

"Are you OK?"

Loki was most definitely not okay. While having some coffee for breakfast in the kitchen, his stomach ached, his head thumped and there was that stupid dizziness that suddenly hit him in the worst possible moments. It was being a very shitty day, in a very shitty week, in a very shitty month. He felt like crap, and it had taken all his considerable willpower to simply get out of bed. He hadn't slept properly either, a very vivid dream about Jotunheim and Laufey making him restless and waking him in the middle of the night. He was tired, and felt ill and wanted to go back to bed and cease existing.

But Stark had asked (well, demanded was probably more accurate) his help on the laboratory that day and he had to at least try to be helpful with these people, or else they would suspect foul play and he'd be beaten up. He'd become a part of the team of the Avengers five months prior, when he helped them defeat a criminal. The authorities had granted him asylum with the condition that he helped the heroes whenever they needed the help - like a more extreme way of Community Service.

The person that asked whether he was OK (what this those letters even mean, anyway?) was the soldier, Steve Rogers. He looked at him with eyes full of confused concern. He really didn't know if he should be worried about Loki -confrontational feelings from the time when they were enemies still lingered- but no one else seemed to care about the green-eyed man, and he was too well mannered to simply leave him to his pain and discomfort. Loki had arrived some minutes after him to the kitchen (that was what usually happened, the both of them having breakfast in silence) and only had some coffee, while Steve was having an enormous breakfast with pancakes, fruit salad, bacon and a bunch of other delicious things he had prepared. The Asgardian had pronounced shadows under his eyes and even if he was perfectly clean and his hair was perfectly combed, he looked terrible, tired and sick. So, Steve, as uncomfortable as he was, asked about his health, because he was a gentleman.

"I am fine." Loki said, but they both knew it was a lie.

And Steve still felt uncomfortable because if it was anybody else (him, for example) everybody would swarm them with concern, tell them to go back to sleep or to go to the medical wing, tell them they wanted them to be all right and that they shouldn't play heroes. That health was the most important thing. But not with Loki. Nobody seemed to care much about Loki. Steve had the suspicion that Barton even liked it when Loki got hurt, in battle. Most of the team had been in the kitchen at some point or other while they had breakfast and nobody had talked to was a bit sad.

The guy was practically a pariah and an unwelcomed guest for most. He was only staying in the tower because Stark worked with him in technological and strategical stuff, and his work-hours were unpredictable at best. With Thor living with the Lady Jane in an apartment, the only positive thing Loki heard after arriving were Stark's occasional comments of you're quite smart for a psycho. The rest was bad looks, suspicion, hurtful comments and people ignoring him. Even if they were usually civil with him, sometimes Steve felt that they were ganging up on Loki, and he didn't like that. But didn't feel like standing up for him, either - the guy was still a criminal, reformed or not.  
But then Loki left threw the rest of his coffee down the sink, and there was a green tinge to his cheeks, as if he were going to be sick. And if no one else was going to give a damn about one of their team-mates being sick then he would have to.

"I'm sure Bruce will see you if you go down to medical." He said to the god-turned-ally.

Loki shook his head. He was trying to stay clear of Banner as much as possible, fearing the scientist might get angry at his mere presence and thrash him through the room. When his nightmares weren't about Jotunheim and his heritage, they were about the Hulk. He was already feeling bad enough.

"The good Doctor probably has better things to do." Loki said, quietly. "But I appreciate your concern, Captain."

_I appreciate the fact that you insisted_, he wanted to say, but felt too nauseated and unwell to keep speaking. The voice in the walls informed him that Stark demanded his presence on the lab and so he left, Steve's concerned gaze following him.

When he arrived at the laboratory Stark had already the laid out the parts of the new device they were making and the designs visble on one of the tactile screens. He started speaking as soon as Loki got through the door, commenting data of hertzs and watts and pascals. As much as he may had hated Loki, the guy had some good ideas and an incredible mind for science. He saw things differently, came up with things that neither him nor Bruce would ever think of. But his admiration ended there. Tony didn't forget anything. His relationship with the man was merely professional. And as much as oficially he'd become an Avenger, he was not his friend.

That morning Loki wasn't his usual attentive self, which angered Tony, because if he was no use in the lab why was he even housing the guy? He even had some extremists break in trying to kill Loki. _Citizens against terror_. But it was him, Tony, not the terrorist, who had to pay for their destruction. He kept explaining the modifications he was going to make, but Loki's eyes were unfocused.

"Are you even paying attention?"

Loki was trying to pay attention, he really was, but couldn't. Stark talked very quickly and his mind was functioning slowly that day. And Stark talking in his ear non-stop did nothing to improve his never-ending headache.

"I am, Stark. You were talking about the injection controllers. Continue."

Satisfied with that, Tony kept speaking, thinking maybe he was imagining Loki's absent-mindedness. He did have a tendency to assume the worst of the guy.

But Loki could no longer maintain that level of attention. His eyes closed and suddenly his stomach turned. Ignoring Stark's words, he moved quickly to the edge of the table in front of them and threw up a mix of coffee and bile in the floor, his eyes watering. It was disgusting and burned his throat. This day was getting better and better.

Tony had been explaining the last phase of the modification of the controllers when Loki dashed to the edge of the table and was violently sick. Damn. Tony'd noticed that he was looking a bit worse than usual, but didn't think it was this bad. He approached the man, who was still bent down, panting softly, a white hand clutching the edge of the table. His eyes were watery and filled with pain. Tony tried not to look much at the puke on the floor when he reached Loki.

"Shit, are you okay?" Before Loki had time to glare, he corrected himself. "Scratch that, you're obviously not. JARVIS, send Cleaning Unit Three to clean this, will you? C'mere, I'll get you a chair."

And so he did - he got one of those chairs with wheels on the floor, like a computer chair that Tony used to move around the lab. Loki sat, but his world was still spinning. His black hair covered part of his face, but Tony could see how ridiculously the guy was and the shadows under his eyes, more pronounced than ever. He felt a tad guilty for nearly screaming at him before. He wouldn't have been too attentive either, if he was trying not to puke.

"You want me to get you something? Cammomile tea or something? Maybe I could ask JARVIS what..."

Loki shot him a very nasty look.

"Do not pretend to care, Stark. It makes me even sicker. I will go to wash my mouth and then we can continue."

But when stood up the world spun again, quicker this time and his knees and his eyes closed, his kees buckling. The darkness surrounded him.

"Shit, shit, shit!"

Tony barely had time to stop Loki's fall as he fainted, right there in his lab. Kneeling in the floor with the god's head and shoulders on his lap, he tried to wake him up, get him to react, but nothing. And the guy was too tall for him to carry to medical. So he called Steve, who appeared in a matter of minutes and took Loki bridal style, carrying him to one of the hospital beds in the medical wing. They hoped he would wake up before Bruce arrived but he didn't. He remained there, pale and unmoving, a bit short of breath.

"Should we call Thor?" Steve asked. The guy was his brother, after all.

A presence on the door helped them avoid the subject.

"I don't know... Look, here's Bruce. We have a problem, pal."

"I see." Bruce said, taking in Loki in the bed, looking disturbingly like a corpse in the bed. "How long has he been like this?"

"Six, seven minutes." Tony answered. He wasn't liking this. Not one bit.

Bruce examined the guy, quickly and efficiently. Loki never woke up, didn't react to the cold sthetoscope or to the needle taking his blood. His eyes were still closed. When he finished, the other two Avengers were looking at him.

"So?" Tony said, impatient. The guy had collapsed in his arms. He didn't want to be worried, but he was. "What's the diagnosis, doc?"

Bruce looked uncertain.

"Well, I can't be sure, since the guy is not technically human and all, I mean, this could be something else..."

"Something else? What's your theory?"

"It looks like like anemia. Pretty bad case, too, with the fainting and all. And now I have to ask... either of you have seen him eat this last couple of weeks?"

They looked in their memories, but truth was they hadn't.

"Only tea and coffee." Steve said, suddenly getting more concerned. Maybe if he had convinced the guy to seek help he wouldn't be be unconscious now, looking more dead than alive.

"Can't blame him, though." Tony added. "With the looks he gets. Lots of tension right there. And there are other times when we're not there, sure, but I can inderstand that being hated by everyone on the building might make you lose your appetite."

"But throwing up doesn't fit the symptoms..." Bruce murmured.

"If I may, Dr. Banner." JARVIS's voice. " I have recorded Mister Odinson experiencing nightmares these last days."

"So he's been feeling bad for longer." Concluded Banner. "Thanks, JARVIS."

There was a small uncomfortable silence.

Loki still remained terribly still in the white bed.

Until Tony spoke.

"So... guy's sick because he doesn't eat to avoid the hate and has nightmares. Probably because of the hate, too. Am I the only one feeling a bit bad?"

"You're not." Steve said. "Maybe we've been a bit too hard on him. I mean, he's already been with us five months and nobody says more than _good morning_ to the guy."

"I could be nicer to him in the lab, to be honest." Stark admitted. For all the help he'd received, he doubted to have said_ thanks_ more than once.

When Loki woke up, he was surrounded by three faces and not in the lab anymore. He felt a bit better, but still weak. Fatigued.

"What...?"

"You fainted, princess." Tony's voice said. Loki sat up in the bed, slowly. His head was still a bit foggy. "Apparently you're anemic."  
Bruce went to one of the cabinets filled with meds nd took out some bottles.

"Here, protein and iron supplements, to help you out. Also helpful to cure anemia? Eat. It's important. And if you're feeling bad come to me, ok? I'm not picky with patients."

Loki nodded, still tired.

Steve was loking at him, too, with those blue eyes. He had to say something. This had gone too far.

"And you can eat with us with us if you want to... or I can make breakfast for two in the morning, if you don't want to cook. I... I'm sorry if I was too cold towards you, it's... it's been good having you, despite... the past. I mean it. And... just... take care of yourself, ok? We might need you and your tricks in the next battle."

Steve patted Loki on the shoulder and left, and Bruce took the opportunity to leave too, after flashing a litlle smile.

"Awkward." Tony stated, when they were alone, him and Loki.

"Indeed."

"But Steve did have a point. We've been really dry with you... and it's obviously affected you, more or less. It's been long enough, I think, and you've been great this last few months, as much as I hate to admit it. I'm thankful for all you've done with me in the lab, and I should have realised you weren't a-ok. But next time say something, all right? And if you don't feel like eating with every one else, which I totally understand, I won't mind if you bring food to the lab. We may not be the best of friends, but I kind of like having you around. So get better, ok?"

Tony left too, and Loki felt confused.

What did this mean? Where the Avengers going to act friendly from now on? And he was going to try to act like he believed them? He sighed. It was all too tiring. He had been exhausted the last weeks, from morning to night, with the only distraction of Stark's technology. He had to amdit, these were not his best days. He'd been a prince - then a prisoner - then an unwanted presence in a planet that would never be his home. He was just so very tired. He left the medicine ina nearby counter and tried to get some sleep. Strangely enough, he slept better than he had in a long time. As if the words, however fake of the Avengers, had soothed his troubled conscience somewhat. He slept until six the next morning, and when he got out of the shower and went to the kitchen for his usual coffee, he found the Captain already there.

Steve had thought about the last five months - about how they had treated Loki, about how they had been punishing their alleged ally to the point he made himself sick. Of course, they had their reason to be cold with the guy. But he was tired of being suspicious and cold and unkind. That was not who he was. So that morning he decided to fulfill his word and make breakfast for two - for him and for the latest Avenger. The soldier smiled a bit when Loki emerged from his shower, hair dripping into the black shirt.

"Wanna take a seat, have some breakfast? I heard your doctor advised you to eat."

Loki took the seat and saw the feast in front of him.

"So... Loki. How are you?"

Perhaps being an Avenger wasn't going to be so bad after all.

A/N: I wanted some sick-Avenger-Loki so I wrote it. Title is from a song by The Smiths that you should all listen to. Very beautiful.

Hope you liked it! Reviews are love!

Post-shower Loki eating a pancake will wink at every reviewer ;)


	2. Chapter 2

Things changed after that, slowly. People started tolerating Loki, then they started to appreciate him. He had his shadows, but didn't they all? And Loki had a sense of humour, if you got past the darkness and depression. And boy, was he smart. Everybody enjoyed having someone so smart with them - enjoyed his ideas, if they were reluctant of Loki.

In the end, he became one of them. He was closest to Tony and Steve (one becuase scinece and the other because breakfasts) but the rest, even if they weren't friends, at least treated him like a human being, like they would another co-worker.

He felt he finally belonged. But he was still ill.

It had started like a simple cough, nothing to worry about, and then it got worse.

At first it was only a small thing, almost unnoticeable, a clearing of the throat too many times, a soft cough every now and then. Loki was able to conceal it most of the times but sometimes the others heard it. But he dismissed it, saying it was not important, insisting it was nothing. Tony and him finished their project and started using it - a machine that controlled most of the equipment that Stark had designed with his thoughts, without even having to talk. True technology.

Loki couldn't control the cough as best as he wanted the day of the presentation and Stark got a little worried.  
Nothing important, Loki insisted, and he smiled with those bright eyes, because this was Stark/Loki project and his intellect was finally being recognised. Because he finally felt like he belonged - a monster maybe, but a monster surrounded by other friendly monsters.

His cough never got better. A couple of months after, he had a cough attack that left him almost breathless. Banner kept trying to figure out the cause for it, but couldn't. Loki had a different physiology and there werethings Bruce had never seen before, things that he didn't understand. And Loki kept getting worse and worse. They put him some help with an oxygen mask, so he could breathe better, but couldn't figure out the underlying cause and he kept getting worse. Needing the mask more and more. Looking every day thinner, wearier. Until one day he stopped breathing altogether and collapsed in the living room of Stark tower, while the others could do nothing.

So they had to hook him up to a ventilator.

And there he continued, in a bed, much like a coma patient, for weeks.

Tony kept quiet, but had seen Steve crying silently on Loki's bedside. They had been having breakfast together for months, and had become friends. They joked. Cooked. And now Loki was there - breathless. He was supposed to be stronger than them, supposed to immortal. Not relying on that terribly big machine to be able to breathe. Steve watched the man, the skin pale, the green eyes he'd become so used to tightly closed, his arms on the sides, lifeless. So, yes, he had cried. Because he was tired of losing what he cared about. He lost Bucky, and Peggy, lost his time and home, lost everything. And as he was making himself a new home, a new friend who yes, had a dark past, but was complex and interesting and intelligent and so terribly grateful with every gesture of admiration he had. His friend - his ally, his confident. And now he was lying on a hospital bed, unable to even breathe. The tears kept falling.

Tony was also sad, even if wasn't as graphic as Steve with his sadness. He simply would drink a bit more than usual, ask JARVIS to play their greatest hits. And he had to admit, even if he was a tough guy, it was getting harder to listen to Carry on wayward son wothout tearing up. He hated it. He'd seen the glimpse of who Loki was inside - a guy with daddy issues deeper than his, but a guy so smart it was even scary. Hell, he'd even grown fond of the guys practical jokes. His love for tricks. He didn't want to see him go. Didn't, didn't, didn't. He'd had distraction when Happy was on the hospital - but now there was no Mandarin to hold his atention. No terrible threat to all mankind to terrorist calling him. There were only him and his pain, and Steve's silent tears.

The hardest part was not knowing. And fearing there might come a day when not even the ventilator would work.  
They've gotten Loki and all his complexities by their side, they had finally accepted him and realised how amazing the guy could be and now - this guy that was so smart, this guy had so many problems and people had gave up on him.

Of all of them, Thor was definitely the worst. They had been the closest of brothers when they were younger and then there had been distance, coldness. A relationship that seemed irreparable. And then Loki kind of redeemed himself and Thor hadn't exactly known what to do with himself. There were untold feelings of guilt, of past resentment. And now, that he could see Loki awake again... Regret. Lots of regret. And grief. And loss. He never stayed long, preferring to distract his mind with everything and anything from the terrible truth of his brother's state. As much as he tried, as much as he pretended to, he could never truly hate Loki. Never. And now he couldn't simply see his little brother wasting away, in that bed, with that terrible contraption down his throat. It wasn't fair.

But he wasn't alone. Steve was there, and had breakfast every day by Loki's bedside. Tony talked to JARVIS every day, trying to find a miraculous cure, trying to change the situation. Bruce ocasionally visited too, brooded over the oxygen level and tried to be of use.

Loki just remained there, showing no signs of improvement. Pale as the sheets in the bed, the mouth a bit twitched from where the vent came out. Unmoving. The only sound being the one the machine made. Not being able to breathe, to open his eyes, to move. Having lost himself in the sickness. Pale as a ghost, so, so pale. Fading away in that hospital bed.

It had just been a cough.

_Nothing important._

A/N: I'm feeling a bit angsty and Loki angst helps me. Kinda. Anyways, hope you liked.

Reviews are always lovely ;)


	3. Chapter 3

Loki stayed like that for weeks.

At least, the ventilator seemed to be doing its work. But Bruce and Tony were going crazy looking for a cure - and finding none. Fearing they would only damage more Loki fragile body with their useless experiments. Stark even had a whole division of Stark researchers reassigned to that case. But it was useless, it kept being useless.

They weren´t the same without him. The had grown used to having magic around and now they had to go back to the times when they could only rely on themselves. It was shitty and only reminded them of how much they lost. Yes, Loki was still alive, hooked up to that machine, but it was not enough. They needed him awake. They needed the smart and sassy and vulnerable (ye very powerful) guy that he'd been, but they'd been left only with an empty vessel.

He was still there, impossibly pale, with that plastic tube coming out of his mouth, his beautiful eyes tightly closed. Not a fleeting sign of life in there. Steve cleaned his face and hands, everyday, after he finished his breakfast. Sometimes he had to clean up his own tears too, as they kept falling. One would think that after the weeks had passed his sadness would have diminished somehow, that he would have gotten used to Loki's appearance. But it wasn't happening.

Steve knew the inner hell Loki had been in ever since he found out his true origin. The identity crisis. The desperate attempt to prove that he was as Asgardian as any other. Trying to a good soldier. The abyss. The darkness. The Chitauri. The Avengers. Prison. And now that he had put all of that behind... Finally, after so much suffering. But no. Every day Steve had hope that his friend would wake up and every day his hopes were smashed. It was useless. So, he cleaned Loki's face and tried to hold back the tears.

Natasha was there too, sometimes. She didn't like what had happened to Loki. Not one bit. She didn't want to admit it, but there were some bits of Loki's history that reminded her of her own. Sure, she hadn't wanted to tyrannize the world, but she'd been on the other side. And when she'd come to this one everybody gave her dirty looks, too. They'd known what she had done. They knew who she was. She had needed time to earn other people's respect and create a new reputation. It hadn't been easy.

Loki had done the same thing. When he arrived to Stark Tower and they were told he would be a part of the team, nobody liked it. But he took the dirty looks. The insults of technicians under their breath. Not being invited to anything, not being talked if it wasn't for works. But he stood through all that crap and earned other people's trust in the battlefield, with actions, with facts. He earned his place in the team just as she had done and now he was losing everything over some god-damned sickness that appeared out of the blue.

And besides, this whole mess was making Rogers sad, and Natasha liked the guy and didn't enjoy seeing him so down. So sometimes she went to the hospital room with him, for support, and endured the maddening beeping of the machines for hours. Sometimes Rogers talked to Loki, about the things that were happening, about some breakthrough on Banner's and Stark's investigation, about the weather even. He asked him what was wrong. He asked him to wake up.

Natasha never talked with the guy, but once he held his cold hand on his own (she'd heard that human contact was good for coma patients and almost unconsciously done it, after Rogers had left, wishing to make a difference, to help in some way) and felt a lump in her throat. It was not the first colleague she would see die, but still. It hurt a bit. Knowing that all the work they guy had done would be cut so short – because of some stupid illness. He deserved better.

In the lab things were quite gloomy, too.

"We're gonna fix this, Bruce, I tell you we're gonna fix it. We still have time." Tony said, over and over, more to himself than anything else.

But as much as he tried to convince himself, he knew time was limited. He hadn't been to the room in a while because it had spooked him how similar to a dead body Loki had looked. So pale and unmoving. He hadn't looked like that when he collapsed. Loki was wasting away and Tony knew it. And all of their attempts to kill this damned disease had been useless, and only made him and Bruce more frustrated. He was also avoiding Steve and his shiny blue eyes and Romanoff and that look that said _you can't avoid this forever_ and he looked back at her like saying _try me_ but he knew that at some point he would have to go back.

And time was running out.

"Sunny day today." Steve was telling Loki while he had breakfast that morning. "Strangely warm for this time of October. Maybe it has something to do with that climate change from the media. Or maybe it's just a warm October, who knows."

Steve always felt better on mornings, more hopeful. _Things could get better today,_ he told himself and actually believed it. Every moment was a moment in which things could improve. In which there was hope. _Room for recovery._

Romanoff was there, too, silent as usual, aggressively staring out of the window. Steve didn't really know why was she coming (and more and more often) but he appreciated the company, even if she didn't provide much conversation. Loki didn't either, but he kept coming. Every day was a day in which he was still alive, if only barely. His cheeks were sunken now, the shadows under the closed eyes had a grey tinge. But he was alive. That was what mattered.

"Maybe I'll go out to read in the park, or have a run. We should enjoy this weather while it lasts."

Sometimes, the beeping of the machines drove Natasha crazy. Other times it was the only thing that helped her stay in the room. _Beep. Beep. Beep. _It was almost calming. Like a song. Rogers offered her pancakes, but she declined with a half-smile. He seemed to like having her here. It was a nice feeling… Rogers had so few people left in the world… But she was there. And was still there, too. Even if it probably wasn't for long.

They were talking about some SHIELD superiors (Steve would never admit it, but he loved gossiping) when an explosion of light and lightning filled the room. When they could finally see again through the light Steve and Natasha saw Thor, with his Asgardian clothes and another person. A woman.

"Friends, may I introduce you to Frigga, Queen of Asgard and my mother. She's going to help us save Loki."

Thor said, and Frigga smiled.

Her smile fell when she saw the state of her son.

This was going to be difficult.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed!

Reviews are always appreciated! :)


End file.
